Ruddocks upgrades its cutting with a Polar guillotine and materials handling

Print Solutions

Ruddocks Design & Print in Lincoln is to install a Polar 92 N Plus guillotine with two stacklifts and a jogger, an investment that will take some of the strain out of cutting and which will give an anticipated 20% increase in throughput.

Ady Potter, production director, said: ‘We are moving from a 2001 standalone Polar 92 guillotine to one that is more automated and with handling equipment around it. That will eliminate some of the heavy lifting and give us a significant improvement in throughput. The touchscreen and Compucut software with its ability to prepare programmes and files ahead of the work being loaded will be a great advantage and the CIP 4 compatibility gives us the option to link finishing into our workflows in the future.’

The new guillotine arrives next month and will immediately move into double day shift production. It will operate alongside a Polar 66. The smaller guillotine is dedicated to digital print production and the larger 92cm width Polar N Plus will handle the rest, including work from the company’s Speedmaster XL 75-5+L.

The company can handle work from very short runs up to tens of thousands but with an average of about 5000 on the litho side.

‘Business at Ruddocks is buoyant,’ continued Ady. ‘Our design studio is rapidly growing and bringing in print. We have a very loyal print customer base and this is constantly expanding.’

Ruddocks has a solid reputation for delivering quality and first class customer service and has recently won a number of international, national and regional awards. Its new guillotine will help it continue to provide a quality result in a timely manner.